Things To Remember When Babysitting A Consulting Detective
by DreamingEmily
Summary: Life as John Watson is full of London alleyways, crime scenes, bad teas, and a consulting detective flatmate. Living with his flatmate at 221b Baker Street itself is an adventure in its own way - Sherlock is hard to deal with as always, yet somehow, John is expected to take care of him. But spiders, really?


Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective of 221B Baker Street, is mortally afraid of spiders.

John sighed at the absurdity of it, of all the years he has known Sherlock, including the two-year period when he assumed he had buried Sherlock's body, nothing could have readied him for this new knowledge about the great detective. Out of all the things he had seen and been through, out of all the fears a genius could have, Sherlock Holmes has to be afraid of spiders.

He discovered this knowledge after he woke up this morning to find Sherlock hunched in a corner of the sofa, glaring at a spot on the table like it had the nerve to offend him. That spot, John later learned, was apparently a tiny, 'cunningly evil' and ' plotting' spider (according to Sherlock). He had proposed they guide the unfortunate spider outside the flat with his newspaper, but Sherlock only looked at him with an expression of pure horror. John distinctly remembers the same expression on Mycroft Holmes' face when he asked for permission to touch that tarantula at Baskerville. Maybe it runs in families.

As John moves around in the kitchen, making his tea with a little low fat milk (his morning jogs did not help at all, according to Sherlock), he sighed at his flatmate's extreme personality. Not that he doesn't like living with Sherlock, living in the central of London with a rather cheap rent is a great benefit, but Sherlock's personality can be a handful sometimes. He sipped his steaming tea and was lost in his thoughts for a while.

"John? John! JAAAAWWWWNN!" Sherlock wailed from the sitting room

"What is it now?" Sherlock had been out of sorts ever since he woke up this morning after finishing a rather gruesome case involving a dead fashion designer and a poisoned mascara (which John has named 'The Eye of the Beholder'). In his normal case-solving self, Sherlock can be considered a big drama queen, issuing orders on everyone, offering insults to the officers at Scotland Yard, and overreacting to almost everything that happens. After living with him for so many years, John has gotten used to Sherlock's drama-queeness, but he knows from experience that the detective's agreeableness is way lower than his usual annoying self after a case. After years of living with Sherlock, John has eventually developed a system of tracking Sherlock's agreeableness, which is to match certain Sherlockian behaviours to stages of the 'post-case syndrome'.

In the first stage of post-case, which begins a couple of hours after a finished case, Sherlock is usually calm, perhaps from the exhaustion of finishing cases that requires metal and physical effort; Sherlock is more subdued from eating, sleeping, and the satisfaction of solving a given case. Second stage post-case Sherlock begins a day or two after the case and features a sullen detective stealing John's laptops to do experiments on his blog, there were many times in which John had to tackle Sherlock and wrestle with him on the flat's dirty floor for his stolen laptop.

Judging from the indicators, Sherlock is on the third-stage today.

" It's here! I know it's still here, I can feel it!" He was sprawled across the sofa in his dressing gown and pajamas, his messy hair stuck up even more as he crumpled it with both hands frustratingly, making him looked (and sounded) like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

John sipped his cup of tea and surveyed the living room, there wasn't a single spider to be seen after Sherlock tried to beat it with the riding crop, which is still peaking out from under Sherlock's body. He sat down on his favourite armchair and started to read the morning paper.

"Sherlock, it's gone now, no need to worry about the spider. What's a tiny spider is going to do to you anyway?" He mumbled while flipping through the pages, looking for something interesting to take his mind off from his melodramatic flatmate. The third stage is not something he hates but is still hard to deal with, Sherlock is usually unpredictable in his actions in his normal self, but combine his dramatic nature and the lack of cases and you will get something new altogether; this often includes loud speeches about the soles of John's feet describing his entire sex life, violent outbursts at the smiley face on the wall, hacking into John's blog and writing down links to porn sites to check the audience's reactions, imploding the kitchen and other things that make John want to strangle his flatmate. John wonders if he could write about the post-case syndrome on his blog, it'll probably be popular with the Scotland Yard.

"No, it's not!" Sherlock sat up, annoyed, and glared at John from across the room " Because spiders bite, John. Don't you get it? Can't you feel it? It's here. It's still here. I can feel it staring at me!" He half-shouted grumpily and once again flopped down and curled himself into the back of the sofa.

" For God's sake, you're just bored!" John slammed his newspaper close and got up from the armchair wearily.

" Hmm, perhaps?" Sherlock 's voice came out muffled from facing the sofa. John stared at the ball of a man with the height and limps too long to be acting like a three-year old in want of attention.

"Fine. Will you be satisfied if we do a throughout search of the flat to prove to spider is still here?"

Sherlock turned his head to look at him, considering John's offer for a few seconds and rolled himself over.

" You'll really help me find the spider?"

" That's what I'm saying."

Sherlock beamed at John with twinkling eyes and jumped out of the sofa energetically. John tried hard not to smile at Sherlock's figure darting to suspicious corners of the flat and managed to roll his eyes instead. Sometimes he realize how much he spoils Sherlock, if you can spoil a full-grown man. But he really can't help it, John thought as he drained the remaining of his cup of tea.

Because in the third stage Sherlock acts like a toddler; stubborn, loud, and has tantrums, but John doesn't hate it. In fact, he finds himself happy to feel needed, to find himself the center of someone else's attention.

After moving several stacks of paper on Sherlock's desk and looking behind cushions, John caught Sherlock stealing glances at him, and when he raised his eyebrow questioningly Sherlock cleared his throat nervously.

"John, when we find the spider…" Sherlock began and shuddered at the word "spider".

"...Can you pick it up for me?" he finished through gritted teeth, the riding crop by his side, his eyes on the floorboards. "I don't want Mycroft to see, he is already enjoying too much out of this."He gestured at the window, at the CCTV camera that always watches their flat.

John's stare continued for a few more seconds before he settled down his empty cup. He could almost see Mycroft smirking at Sherlock's behaviour through the camera, and for some reason, he doesn't like that someone else can see Sherlock this way.

"Sure. Tell you what, why don't we send your brother an early Christmas present while we're at it?"

Sherlock's blue-gray eyes lifted to meet his for a second, and breaks into a wide, mischievous grin.

"Like mature adults, John."

"Like mature adults indeed." John chuckled.

You really can't help spoiling Sherlock Holmes.


End file.
